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Saturday, 19 May 2012

Fat-free chocolate espresso brownies - for Coffee Set Match

As you may have seen from my previous post, I'm currently following Weight Watchers and have so far lost
two stone. Now I have no intention of only creating Weight
Watchers-friendly recipes for the Coffee Set Match challenge, but I
thought I'd kick off with something a little bit less guilt-inducing
than usual, so we can all save a few extra calories for when we
really need them! It's our friend Mike's birthday on Monday and we
are going for a yummy Indian meal so I'm trying to be good for a few
days beforehand and save myself... anyway do give these a try, they
don't taste anything like diet food whatsoever!

Ingredients:

100g self raising flour

60g cocoa powder (I like Bourneville)

Pinch of salt

75g soft brown sugar

2 whole eggs, beaten

2 egg whites

1 shot of espresso (I used a Lavazza
Appassionatamente capsule), left to cool a bit

Preheat the oven to 180ºC and grease
and flour a square 18cm tin. I've been using Dr Oetker Cake Release Spray recently which is very good indeed and can be found in Tesco
etc.

Sieve the flour, cocoa powder and salt
together (or if you're lazy, like me, tip it all into a bowl and use
a whisk to mix it all together which will get rid of 95% of the
lumps). Mix in the two beaten eggs with a big spoon, followed by the
shot of espresso. The mixture will be very thick.

Take a separate bowl and make sure it
is free of grease. Rubbing a cut lemon over the inside is a good way
to make sure there's no trace of grease - a little tip for you!
Whisk the two egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Tip in the
sugar and continue to whisk until the stiff peaks look lovely and
glossy. Resist the temptation to eat the lovely beige-coloured raw
meringue, difficult though it may be.

Add a third of the meringue to the rest
of the mixture and fold it in gently. This will loosen up the
mixture. Fold in the remaining two thirds, nice and gently, being
careful not to overmix as this will knock all the air out of the
meringue.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin
and bake for 14-15 minutes. The top should be set but still just
slightly squidgey. Cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out
and cut into squares.

These are yummiest when still warm from
the oven, but do try and eat them on the same day as you make them
(yes, I'm sure you can manage this difficult task) as they do stale
quite quickly. However they freeze extremely well, wrapped in cling
film, and if you zap a frozen brownie in the microwave for thirty
seconds it will be defrosted and warmed to perfection.

I hope you enjoy these brownies, but
check back soon as I also plan to make some cappuccino brownies next
week that are most definitely not diet friendly!

Good to see you back, I've been wondering what had happened to you. Well now I know, losing masses of weight - very well done. Glad to see you are allowed an occasional treat though. I'd imagine the these are quite crisp if using loads of egg white - sound good anyway.